AP Lang Unit 5 - Vocabulary

Addendum

n. (pl. addenda) an addition or supplement designed to increase correctness, completeness, or accuracy

Ex: The publisher included an addendum to the book, clarifying historical inaccuracies in the first edition

Amnesty

n. a general pardon for an offense against a government, in general, any act of forgiveness

Ex: the government declared an amnesty for political prisoners, allowing them to return home without fear of prosecution

Autonomy

n. self government, political control

Ex: The colony fought for autonomy, seeking the right to govern itself without interference.

Axiomatic

adj. self-evident, expressing a universally accepted principle or rule

Ex: It is axiomatic that good preparations leads to better results on standardized tests

Blazon

v. to adorn or embellish; to display conspicuously; to publish or proclaim widely

Ex: The team’s victory was blazoned across the front page of every major newspaper.

Caveat

A warning or caution to prevent misunderstanding or discourage behavior

Ex: The agreement came with the caveat that all deadlines must be strictly adhered to.

Equitable

adj. fair, just, embodying principles of justice

Ex: The teacher ensured an equitable distribution of resources so every student had a fair chance to succeed

Extricate

v. to free from entanglements or difficulties; remove with effort

Ex: The firefighter managed to extricate the kitten from from the tangled wires.

Filch

v. to steal, especially in a sneaky way and in petty amounts

Ex: The pickpocket attempted to filch a wallet from the distracted tourist’s bag.

Flout

v. to mock, treat with contempt

Ex: She continued to flout the school’s dress code by wearing prohibited clothing.

Fractious

adj. tending to be troublesome; unruly, quarrelsome, contrary; unpredictable

Ex: The fractious committee members argued over every minor detail, delaying progress

Precept

n. a rule of conduct or action

Ex: The company’s precept of putting customers first had earned it widespread loyalty.

Prognosticate

v. to predict, especially on the basis of present indications or signs

Salutary

adj. beneficial, helpful; healthy, wholesome

Ex: The salutary effects of a balanced diet and regular exercise are evident in both physical health and mental well-being

Scathing

adj. bitterly severe, withering; causing great harm

Ex: The critic’s scathing review discouraged the director from attempting a sequel.

Scourge

v. to whip, punish severely;

n. a cause of affliction or suffering; a source of severe punishment or criticism

Ex: Poverty remains a scourge in many parts of the world, causing widespread suffering.

Soporific

adj. tending to cause sleep, relating to sleepiness or lethargy

n. something the induces sleep

Ex: The professor’s monotone lecture was so soporific that half the class fell asleep.

Transient

adj. lasting only a short time, fleeting

n. one who only stays a short time

Ex: The transient beauty of the sunset reminded them to savor the moment.

Unwieldy

adj. not easily carried, handled, or managed because of size of complexity

Ex: The unwieldy box was too large for one person to carry through the narrow hallway

Vapid

adj. dull, uninteresting, tiresome; lacking in sharpness, flavor, liveliness, or force.

Ex: The movie’s vapid plot failed to hold the audience’s attention.

Epistrophe

A minor device, epistrophe is the ending of a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words. When it appears in a speech or essay, it is emotionally potent

Ex: One of the most famous in Lincoln’s This government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this eaarth.

Fallacy

A failure of logical reasoning. Fallacies appear to make an argument reasonable, but falsely so. The key, however, is for you to be able to spot when someone is not making sense or is failing to convince. When that happens, you may not remember the right label for the fallacy, but you should be able to identify where the author has messed up.

Some common fallacies are: Ad hominem, begging the question, straw man, slippery slope, etc.

False Dilemma

Also known as an either/or fallacy. The suggestion is made in the argument that the problem or debate only has two solutions. You can also call it the fallacy of the excluded middle.

Ex: There are only two options in gun control: where guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns.

Hyperbole

An exaggeration, fairly common in nonfiction prose arguments, that bolsters an argument.

Ex: I know you all give one thousand percent defending this castle against the onslaught of the murderous mutants

Imagery

Any time one of the five senses (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory) is evoked by what you have read, you have encountered imagery. In the new AP test format, but there still may be important images in the argument. If so, two things are usually happening. The first is that the argument is inductive on relying on examples. The second is that the images will often begin to carry a kind of pathos, or emotional feel, which supports the argument in some way.

Imperative Sentence

A command

Ex: You will rescue the maiden or surrender your sword to the Round Table.

Inductive

A form of logical argumentation that requires the use of examples. Inductive arguments are most like science: You get example after example until you reach a conclusion. These types of arguments are fairly easy to spot and very common to argumentative essays. When you encounter an inductive argument, ask yourself two questions: Are there enough examples, and are the examples relevant to the question being addressed?

Ex: A writer who argues for the success of a particular diet plan would use testimonies from success stories, a scientific study proving its effectiveness, and a few doctors who claims it has safe, natural ingredients

Infinitive

The word “to” plus a verb, usually functioning as a noun and often as a predicate in a sentence. Infinitives fake out students because they look like prepositional phrases

Ex: To reach the other side of the river (infinitive phrase and noun and subject) was the desired goal (predicate nominative) of the nearly comatose ogre.

Interrogative Sentence

A question.

Ex: To reach Dracula’s castle, do I turn left or right at crossroads.

Irony

The use of words to express something other than and often the opposite of the literal meaning. There are three types of irony: verbal irony, a contrast between what is said and what is meant (sarcasm); situational irony, a contrast between what happens and what was expected; and dramatic irony, a contrast between what a character thinks to be true and what the reader knows to be true. Familiarity with irony is essential in reading nonfiction prose and especially in doing rhetorical analysis on the exam, as it appears in nearly every piece in one form or another. Irony is often connected to satire or satiric speech.

Ex: He bought the ring and brought it back to their apartment. She had left a note, “Gone to find myself in North Dakota.” An example on the linguistic level uses a metaphor: Your love is a fine cloth - a rag, actually, deteriorating as the elements take their toll.